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Don't Fly During Ramadan

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Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#611

Post by misiti3780 »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #605
laureny wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about and all these other sorts of issues. She's right, and like her, I have found it next to impossible to explain this to Americans who think the US is turning into a police state. People making this claim should spend a few hours reading on history and learn about the Gestapo or the Stasi. What's happening in the U…

It seems like I'm saying this a lot lately on HN: Better than the worst is not good enough. Most especially, better than the fucking Nazis is not good enough. Tyranny does not happen overnight, and it's helped along by people like you who scoff and say "oh, it's not that bad really" until it's too late. "First they came for the Communists..."

I completely agree with this ...

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#612

Post by justin66 »

corresation wrote: post #600
justin66 wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't have hard data (the actual details are often considered confidential), but for the marketing claims of the various makers who all trumpet greater selectivity and the rejection of false positives. Which makes sense, as security is a huge, incredibly competitive industry, and these people are all competing for the world's paranoia dollars. Putting aside the merit of the idea of that the government bidding pro…

So you're anti-government and cynical. Welcome to about 99% of the online community. There are people who actually want to blow up planes. There have been a number of attempts. These machines detect the things that are found in bombs. There are a lot of examples of "security theater" (moreso in the private industry, it should be noted, like the ridiculously useless badges and disaffected employees at most office buil…

> So you're anti-government and cynical.

No, you don't get to label me that easily. (why do you want to?) I believe there is a differentiation to be made between good government and bad government. Security services CAN be made to work.

> And groan, good old Orwell makes a cliched showing. Yes, we all read 1984 in grade school.

I was responding to a specific statement of yours which was pretty spectacularly stupid. I'm not saying YOU are stupid, and I think maybe you can get a handle on why it's so creepy and classically Orwellian. Let's examine it:

> Something triggered on a molecule or taggant that they couldn't easily exclude, so they tried to help him assist them in excluding it. He couldn't, so they had to exhaust all avenues.

"They tried to help him assist them in excluding it." They tried to help him assist them. Are you getting it yet? They were just trying to help him! Against his will they detained him and tried to compel him to do something, but they were just trying to help. To help HIM! To help him ASSIST them, why wouldn't he want to assist them? It'd be awfully suspicious if he didn't want to assist them. Every good person likes to help and to assist, am I right?

They tried to force him to solve a problem that they created with their own machine and they weren't going to let him go about his business until he did it. For his own good. In what sense is your take on that - the wording, at least - not Orwellian?

> Pulling it out as a trope to anything the government does (even where entirely rational and related to an actual threat, and overwhelming painless and transparent) is boorish internet pundit behavior.

Since there wasn't an actual threat, and the process wasn't painless, and since I certainly wouldn't and haven't "pulled it out as a trope to anything the government does" it's hard to understand what the heck you're talking about.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#613

Post by biot »

ctdonath wrote: post #353
rquantz wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds terrible. Police make me very nervous. I avoid them if possible, especially making eye contact. How would I show up in Israel's interview?

There's a difference in reaction between someone nervous of cops vs. someone about to die in the willful act of mass murder.

Saying that there's a difference is a tautology. Of course there's a difference. There's also a difference between someone trying to decide between getting an apple or a blueberry danish.

The important bits are whether the difference is detectable in a manner that is convenient (putting each passenger through an MRI machine is out of the question), reliable (minimize false positives and false negatives), and so on. Just saying "there's a difference" adds no new information to the conversation unless you're able to expand on the quantifiable aspects of those differences.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#614

Post by j2d3 »

jwr wrote: post #73

The land of the free. As I read more and more of those stories I can't help but wonder at how things changed. I am from a formerly-eastern-europe-soviet-bloc country (Poland) and these kinds of oppressive techniques sound very familiar. The haziness of procedures, lack of basic rights, intimidation, no accountability of state officials -- we've seen all that until 1989. At the time, while the communist regime was imp…

"At the same time, the U.S. is rapidly degenerating into something that isn't quite the sinister oppressive regime, but getting close to the point where it could become one, if a wrong leader gets elected."

I think it has little to do with any leader who gets "elected." The actual leadership is safe behind the scenes, busy "electing" people with well placed capital. The faces change, but not what's underneath. I think we passed the point you worry we are getting close to, and I think the wrong leaderS have been "elected" for long enough that we're... just totally screwed.

"It's scary."

Yep.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#615

Post by foobarbazqux »

msrpotus wrote: post #279
amirmc wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about... " The thing is, they don't need to follow you around the same way as in the 'old days' because, like many things, modern technology makes it easier and more efficient. The tyranny of the future isn't going to be like that of the past. That makes it difficult to explain the dangers to people.

One of the scariest parts of this is that it seems like surveillance (if not censorship) is much more targeted. If you aren't the NSA's focus or on a TSA watch list, you might not know anything is going on. But if you are unlucky enough to trigger something, you might be visited with unimaginable torment like @chimeracoder was.

To be fair, that was not unimaginable torment. I think most people can readily imagine what it would feel like to go through what he went through.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#616

Post by jrockway »

amirmc wrote: post #266
jrockway wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take the bus? Drive?

And when the TSA is at all bus stations and gates access to roads? Do you walk? Logic like this means you essentially hide from the problem until there's nowhere left. What happens then?

Doesn't this mean we shouldn't have any laws, because one day the laws could be used to imprison everyone and use their internal organs to produce email spam?

The point is, I think we still have travel alternatives and legal protections from abuse.

The federal government only has the authority to affect travel between states, not within a single state. If the TSA starts interfering with movement in a single state (like on the NYC subway system), we'll see pushback from the state and local governments.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#617

Post by ok_craig »

jrockway wrote: post #190
jwr wrote: post #73

The land of the free. As I read more and more of those stories I can't help but wonder at how things changed. I am from a formerly-eastern-europe-soviet-bloc country (Poland) and these kinds of oppressive techniques sound very familiar. The haziness of procedures, lack of basic rights, intimidation, no accountability of state officials -- we've seen all that until 1989. At the time, while the communist regime was imp…

I don't think this is that oppressive. He went through security and set off an explosives detector. The cops showed up and asked some questions. Then he left. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say the government can't hamfistedly accuse you of a crime. All it says is that they have to charge you or let you go in 24 hours, give you a trial, and punish you in a consistent way. They did that here; they asked some ques…

What do you think about the part where they broke into his home? (Assuming they did.)

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#618

Post by kareemm »

lotyrin wrote: post #488
kareemm wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The explosives detection machinery doesn't care what you look like or believe. I don't know about you, but I want the TSA / FBI / NYPD to look into it so that they're sufficiently convinced the individual is not a threat.

Chemical detection doesn't even get used except under "random" search. There are so many chemicals to test for, and so many of them have other common uses that using chemical tests as a proxy for malicious intent has poor accuracy. Even assuming tests are extremely accurate, false positive rates would still massively exceed the incidence of threats. What you look like will greatly increase your odds of being "randoml…

It wasn't a "random" search. Any time you opt out of the millimeter wave scanner, you get a hand pat-down and your baggage is swabbed for explosives.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#619

Post by nrivadeneira »

jlgreco wrote: post #588
laureny wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is not a "lottery" when the TSA and their goons are profiling people based on race In this story, they were profiling based on the fact that the person set off explosive detectors. Repeatedly. The fact that he was later questioned by tactless people making veiled racial hints doesn't change the fact that he wasn't racially profiled. A Caucasian would have been detained just the same.

> "set off explosive detectors. Repeatedly." If I walk back and forth through a metal detector with a belt buckle multiple times, do I become increasingly suspicious each time it beeps?

At the very least it confirms suspicions that you do in fact have metal on you. By removing doubt, you do increase suspicion.

Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan

#620

Post by mindslight »

Tloewald wrote: post #192
jwr wrote: post #73

The land of the free. As I read more and more of those stories I can't help but wonder at how things changed. I am from a formerly-eastern-europe-soviet-bloc country (Poland) and these kinds of oppressive techniques sound very familiar. The haziness of procedures, lack of basic rights, intimidation, no accountability of state officials -- we've seen all that until 1989. At the time, while the communist regime was imp…

It's an appalling story and the behavior of the TSA is often reprehensible, but seriously -- this is not a fair comparison. So yes, security guys don't know Hindu from Muslim or Indian from whatever, but it's well-known there is a heightened alert right now, US embassies all over the middle-east and Africa are closed out of security fears, and this guy fit a crude profile AND did something slightly unusual (opted out…

> but it's well-known there is a heightened alert right now

lol. it's also well-known that the word "gullible" is written on most ceilings.

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